We live in a technological era. As time progresses, common everyday items become increasingly more complex. Thus, when something breaks, it is no longer a simple task to identify what has broken, and where to obtain a replacement or repair. In particular, in a complex device, one broken part may signal required modifications or replacements for other parts that do not appear to need servicing. Thus, identification of all parts needing replacement can be a somewhat challenging task. The term “part” is intended to refer to any replaceable device (or portion thereof), appliance, or other piece of equipment, such as refrigerators, pipes/tubing, computing devices, bicycles, radios, computer peripherals (e.g., printers or print cartridges, and the like). The term “part” is not intended to refer to any particular class of replaceable goods, such as high-tech components.
Thus, for example, a user might receive notification that a printer's print-head needs replacement. However, the printer manufacturer might also require, or strongly advise, that a related component also be replaced at the same time. Or, the manufacturer might advise that certain cleaning or other printer maintenance be performed when print heads are replaced. And, it is possible that the print head has not malfunctioned, but that another part has failed, causing an erroneous report of print head failure. These related issues and concerns are not properly identified and addressed by a simple notification that the print head has stopped functioning.
Or, a home heating system may fail. Here, however, there is likely to be no indicator suggesting what might have gone wrong, or where to begin searching for what has gone wrong. Although some devices, especially in the high-tech context, have become more adept at performing self-diagnostics to help determine what is wrong with a device (e.g., a light indicating printer head replacement), most devices are not capable of self-diagnostics. In the heating-system context, the failure may be due to a failure in a pilot light for an oil-based heating system, or a faulty fuel nozzle, a kink in a fuel line to the nozzle components, a clogged fuel line filter, or some other type of problem. Here, a manual inspection is required to determine what needs to be replaced, as well as manual identification of related parts (or other concerns) for a part that needs to be replaced. In the context of complex heating systems, this search can be difficult.
Naturally, a device can be expected to be shipped along with detailed instructions to aid in a problem-determination process. However, for complicated devices such as heating systems, computer network devices, etc., the instructions are typically used by an installer of the system. When a problem arises, the typical end-user may no longer have access to these instructions. In addition, assuming the end-use can identify what needs to be replaced, there still is the issue of locating a vendor for replacement parts.
Frequently, instructions propose a vendor (usually the manufacturer) for obtaining replacement parts. But, such advice may be very costly, and may also be stale by the time it is needed (e.g., the manufacturer or other listed vendors may no longer support the device). And, such instructions usually do not provide information to determine part inter-dependencies. Thus, necessary or suggested maintenance might not be performed simply because it is not known to be related to a particular part failure. And finally, even the best manual is of little use when, as noted above, the instructions are unavailable, lost or damaged, when they are needed.
What is needed, then, is a straightforward and efficient system for automatically identifying a part that has failed, and for determining related part failures or related replacement concerns for a failed part.